Sunbath
Thiago Iaqeb Ahmose
To do the crossing – live the territory.
The idea is that this is not research.
Research destroys people.
It treats them like objects.
It kills the body, it kills the soul.
Then it presents, like a picture
on a museum’s wall.
I dropped by a greengrocer at Zaki Narchi’s entrance
I was like a foreigner. It wasn’t from that place.
“Is there a leadership here, ma’am?
People who organize the community?”
“There is no such thing here, kid”
Weird, right?
I look like an alien asking to talk to the leader.
Or even a European trying to get to know the village’s chief
A rat that wants other’s cheese.
They may have a leadership, you know?!
But in a city of murderers,
Who is going to expose their representatives like this?
There is a park here close to Zaki Narchi
It smells like blook, and silence
There is a wind that sounds like a shout.
Because even before I was born
Brazil decided to assassinate all the men that were imprisoned here.
Brazilians have applauded. They have voted for the one who you will do the dirty job for them.
Carandiru is a jail.
And I sometimes drop by to sunbathe.
Just like the gringos that come to Brazil. Tourism at a jail.
And yourselves?
You vote for jailers.
That, with little guns in their hands, press the button you don’t want to press.
They just follow orders. Every Brazilian wants to be the boss, right…
Sometimes I think that
Brazilians have no soul.
Because for each child that is born
several hundred others are murdered.
In a project of city hall, state, federation, order and progress
So that the heir may have an open yard,
to be able to play cops and robbers with the maid’s son.
Sounds tough, right? Tough…
But tough in fact was the sewer smell in open spaces
In the greengrocer that I’ve just visited.
It would be truly tough if instead of showing colorful and red drawings
I actually decided to show the real photos of the genocide that happened here.
I hope you research this information
and tell your children.
So that they can get their souls back.
So that they can elect people and not rats.
So that each one has its piece of cheese
and do not need to steal from the other.
So that we stop making guns signs with our hands.
All my respect to Zaki Narchi,
and to those who with their souls make the thing happen.
